The recent announcement that Baz Luhrmann plans to direct a remake of "The Great Gatsby" in 3D has caused a great stir in both literary and cinema circles.  The film, due to be shot in Luhrmann's native Australia this August, will star Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. 

I don't have a problem with the shooting location unless Luhrmann changes the story's venue from Long Island to a sheep station in the outback.  Nor am I a cultural snob who feels that the book is too precious an artwork to be translated to the screen (despite the mediocre version made in 1974 with Robert Redford.)  I am, however, totally befuddled by the decision to make the film in 3D.  The story is not a rollicking adventure saga with epic battles or chase scenes, and while there is gunplay, it's limited to Gatsby's murder and Wilson's suicide, hardly the stuff of an action thriller.

It may be that this is an attempt to move the entire industry towards the 3D standard.  Until now, the movies shot in this format have been cartoons, either literally animated or with comic book plots, which is consistent with the Gee Whiz factor of the effect.  It remains to be seen whether making smaller, less visually exciting films in 3D will increase their viewership and profitability.  But for me, the real question is whether a movie that depends on character development or subtle plotting can in any way be enhanced by the process.  At the risk of showing my age, I believe the answer is no.  And to explain why, I must digress a bit...well, actually a lot and long-windedly at that.

The art of film is simply illusion at twenty-four frames a second.  Mechanically, it's just a series of still images projected on a screen and sequenced quickly enough that the human eye believes it to be continuous motion, but thanks to this visual legerdemain, we can be entertained, uplifted, terrorized, both saddened and amused to the point of tears, and given profound insight into human nature....maybe not from Jackass 3, but certainly from others.

The style of the medium has been constrained by the existing technology of the time.  The conventions of silent movies with their grandiose gesturing and title cards were quickly jettisoned with the advent of sound.  The dramatic high-contrast lighting of film noir was lost with the near-universal adoption of color film.  For the most part, these changes were instituted to better approximate the physical reality beyond the theater - we hear sound, we see in color, our visual field is wide.  Even the rapid development and refinement of CGI and special effects was intended to make the fantastic and surreal fit more seamlessly with the mundane.

But there is a difference between a technical advancement, which enhances rather than interferes with the overall experience, and a gimmick designed primarily for thrills and box office bucks.  There's nothing wrong with a gimmick - a roller coaster can give you a mind-blowing ride, but it's awfully limited as a general mode of transportation.

Which brings us back to 3D, the cinematic (and soon video) craze du jour.  An early attempt to bring artificial depth to the two-dimensional screen was created in the 1950's as a ploy to win the hearts and moolah of TV-besotted viewers.  This phenomenon came and went quickly along with other gimmicks such as Smell-O-Vision and the "Tingler."  There were some later attempts at multi-focal films such as Jaws 3-D (1983), but because of limited technology, box-office economics, and forgettable content, they failed to catch on.  Now, thanks primarily to James Cameron's film, Avatar, 3D has returned with a vengeance to dazzle your eyes and vacuum your wallet.

I saw Avatar and found the 3D experience unpleasant.  Firstly, the glasses dimmed the screen as if I were watching through a neutral density filter.  Secondly, the effect didn't give the action a continuous sense of depth, but rather seemed to constrain it to a series of 2D planes stacked in front of each other.  This made the film seem more cartoonish than live-action, but not satisfyingly either.  I also experienced eyestrain and a low-grade headache, but since I have some mitigating vision problems, I'll give that one a pass. 

Even if the technology were not plagued by these issues, the real problem with 3D and the reason that I don't think it will ever work in movies of any substance is that the effect doesn't so much support the film as distract from it.  Unlike other cinematic innovations, 3D never lets you forget it's there.  Ooh, look!  That spaceship is heading right for me!  It'll be hard to concentrate on Jay Gatsby's melancholy if his body keeps wandering in and out of my personal space.  I am happy to let my imagination lose itself in the screen; I don't need or want the characters sitting next to me in the theater.

During my years as an editor, friends would sometimes compliment my work and be surprised by my negative reaction.  I had to explain that if they were aware of my efforts, they must have been distracted from the story I was trying to tell, and therefore I had failed.  My best work was seamless and invisible - the story always came first.  If viewers were moved but unaware of my work, I had succeeded.

It's possible that a new generation of moviegoers will come to regard 3D as the norm, but for now, please leave Gatsby in West Egg and out of the aisles of the Kendall Square Cinema.